June 10, 2025 • 24 mins
Episode 83: If not Now? Then When?
In this episode of 'Conversations with Kimen,' host Kimen Petersen reflects on the importance of taking action towards one's dreams and goals. He shares personal experiences of overcoming self-doubt, negative self-talk, and setbacks, emphasizing the urgency and value of acting in the present moment. Kimen encourages listeners to confront their fears and make the conscious decision to pursue their aspirations, highlighting the belief that everything we desire is just one decision away. Listen in for inspiring anecdotes, motivational insights, and a call to embrace the now in achieving personal fulfillment and success.
00:00 Introduction to Conversations with Kimen
00:36 A Personal Story of Inspiration
01:54 Overcoming Self-Doubt and Negative Self-Talk
03:20 The Importance of Taking Action Now
05:15 Struggles with Dyslexia and Education
07:28 The Concept of Free Will and Life's Purpose
10:24 The Turning Point: A Life-Changing Decision
21:01 The Power of Tenacity and Facing Fears
23:51 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
. Conversations with Kimen is aboutinspiration, life lessons, and wisdom.
Your host, Kimen Petersen shareshis stories to inspire you to live
a more soulful and illuminated life.
The topics covered in this podcastare as personal opinions inspired by
life, experience, and conversationsshared with amazing people.
Kimen hopes to encourage you tobe guided by life in the flow.
(00:23):
So the whole journey is moremanageable and joyful and fulfilling.
If not now,
then when?
So literally yesterday, uh, one ofmy athletes was in, and I really
enjoy talking to this athlete'cause they're super supportive.
(00:44):
Like not only in the aspect of thispodcast, but I'm super supportive around
my goals and they always have somereally cool input and literally they've.
Basically they're splashed acrossepisodes, um, because of the incredible
ability they have to reframe andlike, go for it no matter what.
(01:08):
And you know, they do havestruggles, but they do overcome them.
And just in the overcoming ofthe struggle, they also have the
ability to feel what they needto feel all the way through.
And then come out the otherside with a new look on life.
(01:28):
So anyway, I'm chatting with them aboutthe episodes I'm about to do and what
I'm inspired about, and they're like,oh, there's this thing I keep on seeing.
Um, and it's like, if not now.
Then when, and I'm like,whoa, okay, wait a minute.
Everything's gonna bepushed aside for a minute.
(01:49):
And I, I do need to talk about this'cause this is super important and it.
Definitely I was sitting in thislife where I wasn't going for life.
Um, there's a lot of reasons.
I mean, I had a reallyself negative self image.
I had an inner critic that I'd built upto the, the strength of not only being
(02:13):
the conversation in my head, but it wouldget so loud, it would actually come out.
I'd actually talk to myselfnegatively, out loud,
and.
My excuse was IU this was what I usedto stop me from doing things right?
Like I, I believed that I wasn't capable.
(02:35):
I believed that I wasn't strong.
I wasn't able, I mean, at onepoint it was almost like my biggest
belief in self that I was, Inever amount to nothing, anything.
That I was only here on this earthtaking up space, basically displacing
a certain amount of air until the dayI die, and then I displace less air.
(02:59):
I never accomplished anything andI never really make a difference,
even though I had this incredibledesire to make a difference.
So.
It was a long path to get fromthere to there, there to here.
But some of the things I learned alongthe way, I'm gonna share them today.
(03:20):
So I truly believe, and I've foundin my own life, that if you really
wanna do something new, I mean, if youhave a desire for more than you are.
If you wanna begin somethingnew, something big, you know,
you want to change your job, youwant to like regain your health
(03:42):
if you want to go back to school.
These things aren't justgiven to you randomly.
I mean, one of the episodes Italk about, um, how, what if it's.
You know your future self
(04:05):
kind of calling across dimensions andtime saying, come on, this is your dream
and this future self is cheering for you.
Like if you have any ofthese dreams, then go for it.
'cause the truth is right now you arethe youngest you will ever be again.
(04:26):
This is it.
You are right in this moment,in this present moment.
You will never be youngerthan you are right now.
You'll, you'll never be more capable,have more capacity, have more energy, have
more possibility than you do right now,
(04:53):
and you'll never have more timeto do something to go for it.
And you know,
I truly believe that what you aremeant to do will happen no matter what.
Have you ever noticed somethinglike this is something I noticed.
(05:15):
I had this incredible dream tomake a difference in the world,
but in order to make a difference in theworld, you have to get some education.
And when I was in school, Ihad a lot of trouble reading.
Like I couldn't read very fast.
It was really hard to read.
(05:37):
Um, I'd keep on having to go backand read it over and over again,
and I keep on getting the wordswrong and everything was jumbled up.
And yeah, it was, it was,it was a chore to read.
And on top of that, it wasincredible chore to spell.
Because every time I spelledsomething right, it looked wrong.
(05:58):
So I correct it and it was wrong.
And my teachers would always betelling me over the years, like, why
did you, why did you correct that?
Because you had it right andthen you changed it to wrong.
And I had no clue
until I was 26.
And one of my friends, um, was aspecial ed teacher and I, I'd written
(06:22):
a happy birthday card for them.
And when they read it, they'relike, did you notice it?
A lot of your letters are backwards.
And I'm like, no, that's just how I write.
She's like, are you dyslexic?
And I'm dys.
What?
Anyway, we did some testing.
(06:42):
It turns out it was dyslexic.
And the crazy thing was that allthose years of having so much
trouble reading and spelling.
I thought I was stupid.
In fact, that was my inner critic.
You're stupid.
You'll never make it through school.
So I actually put off a lot of things inlife, a lot of dreams in life, because
(07:08):
I didn't think I was good enough.
I didn't think I was stupid.
I, well, I thought I was stupid.
I didn't think I had anything.
There was nothing special about me, andthere was no way that I would ever be able
to make a huge difference in this world.
And the crazy thing is life.
Like, like we're we're talking about.
(07:28):
If not now, then when, and these bigthings I, like I said before, they're
gonna happen, you know, like some of themajor religions talk about free will.
Like you have the free will.
Right?
See, I have a different take on free will.
You know how things cycleover and over again.
(07:50):
They keep on cycling and cyclingand cycling until you learn the
lesson or until you go and do it.
Well, I had this experience
and after a while realized, wow, freewill wasn't exactly what I thought.
I, I thought free will was the freewill to do whatever I wanted regardless.
(08:15):
And now my take on freewill is pretty simple.
There is an incredible plan formy life, and I definitely get the
echo of that plan in the things I'mattracted to doing or the things I'm
inspired, like go back to school, likefind a job that makes a difference.
These themes were in mylife all the time, and yet.
(08:38):
I'm like, oh man, but I can't, or it's toohard or it's gonna cost too much money.
And there was just like thing afterthing after thing in the way of going
in the, in the direction of this dream.
And like I said, I realized that freewill doesn't mean we have the free
(08:59):
will to do whatever the hell we want.
Free will actually, to me.
Is there is a purpose and a plan foryour life, and you have the choice
to go willingly or unwillingly.
You actually have the choice to delayit and go through the struggle of delay.
(09:20):
'cause literally me knowingthat I wanted to have a job that
made a difference every day.
And this idea that I wasn't smartenough or I couldn't afford it,
or I like it would be too hard.
It kept on and I just kept on goingdown the path of taking job after job
(09:43):
after job that never really amountedto anything until I took a job that was
too much and it just about destroyed me.
And this is what happens if you don't.
Start moving in the direction of yourpurpose, of your goals, of your dreams.
It's gonna keep on cycling andit's gonna keep on cycling.
I, I, I look at it this way, theuniverse gives you a poke and
(10:06):
it's like, you gotta get going.
You gotta get doing this,and it pokes you again.
Come on, let's go.
And it pushes you over.
Like, come on.
And if you don't listen and you don'tdo it, you're gonna end up like me.
I took this crazy job that I, I, I,it was too much and the stress was so
(10:30):
much that one day I ended up in theemergency ward thinking I was having
a heart attack and I was sittingthere going, so this is how it ends.
And I was like, okay.
Uh, I got it.
Okay.
Whoever's listening up there,get me outta this and I promise
I'm gonna figure it out.
I'm gonna go in my direction because ifnot now, you're gonna cycle over and over
(10:57):
and it's gonna get harder and harder andharder until you are thrown on the ground
and like.
You can go for that.
I'll never do that again.
I will never go through that again.
I don't get me wrong, I'm so grateful thatthe universe actually put me through that,
that it found my way to my ultimate dream.
(11:19):
But I don't think youhave to go through this.
I think you can find your waywithout going to that level
because literally after, afterthat night in, in the cardiac ward.
It is.
It is interesting.
Tony Robbins says, nothing will everchange until the pain of staying the same.
(11:48):
Gets larger, gets bigger,gets more like difficult.
Then the pain of change.
And once you get to that point,once you get to threshold,
that's when you change.
And it's like the universeis gonna do that for you.
(12:09):
Or you can realize thatyou have this dream
and you can do it for yourself.
You can sit there and realize that metaking no action to towards this dream,
me waiting thinking there's time.
Literally wasting the time becauseright now, this moment you will, you'll
(12:33):
never gonna have time like you have now.
You're never gonna have energy.
You're never, ever again gonna bemore capable, more like coherent.
This is the moment.
So if you're sitting therelike, not now, not now, not now.
It's like get really present.
(12:55):
To the delay and what's that causing?
Because the reason we're saying not nowis because we think the pain of the change
to moving towards that is gonna be greaterthan what we're going through right now.
Sitting on the couch, watchingtv, scrolling your phone.
(13:20):
I mean, is that better than maybe goingto bed a little earlier, getting up, going
to school, maybe working what you can?
Maybe, you know, it's, itain't gonna be easy, trust me.
It wasn't When I went back to school,it was hell every day, but I just
created routine and I just dug in andI struggled with my internal dialogue.
(13:47):
Because I knew this was my last chance.
I was in my forties.
If I'm gonna change, I gotta do it now,
because there was no more thanwhen I'd pushed it too far.
I had no choice.
This was the moment
(14:08):
and it was hard, and therewere moments I broke down.
But I'll tell you what,when I received that letter.
Because we'd, we'd written these licensingexams and I was moving in this direction
of a dream where I would have a job everyday that I could help people that, like
(14:28):
my existence was gonna have meaning andit was gonna make difference in the world.
And I remember the day I'm, Igo down and I open the mailbox.
I've been opening it day afterday, waiting for the letter to
tell me whether or not I madeit through my licensing exams.
And like I got it and I took it outtathe thing and I'm shaking 'cause
I'm not going to open that up in theelevator 'cause I don't want to cry in
(14:52):
bunch in front of a bunch of people.
I don't know.
And I got into the door of myapartment, I didn't even look.
I tore the letter open and allit said was, we are pleased.
And I just fell down and Icried and I realized that,
that I finally listened to.
(15:14):
It's now we don't have anything likewe have this myth, like we have time.
Are you really?
Do you really know that
the past doesn't exist?
All that exists as an echo, a memory.
The past does not exist.
(15:36):
Everything up to this point is a memory.
It's not real anymore.
The future actually does not exist.
It doesn't.
It doesn't.
It's not tangible.
You can't grab it.
There's not, it just, it doesn't exist.
It's just a dream or a curse orfear, or wherever you are around your
(16:02):
future, like whatever you believe.
But that's not even the truth.
And most of the time we are puttingsuch negative things into our
future, which are not the truth.
The only thing that exists.
This is the, this is the thing that'slike the only thing that exists is
this moment, this present moment.
(16:24):
And in this moment right now, this is it.
You, you will never be younger.
You'll never be more capable.
You will never be more coherent.
You will never have more energy.
You and you will never have moretime than you have right now.
So why aren't you getting up like you'reon fire and chasing it and going for it?
(16:49):
Like if not now, thenwhen, and there is no when.
That's a great delusion.
There is no when all there is is nowand now, and now and now, and it doesn't
matter what you've done your whole life.
Literally, I had to go back andredo a bunch of stuff because my,
(17:11):
my grades weren't high enough.
I had to, I had to let go of a whole passof not being able to read, uh, very fast.
I had to study four and a half hoursa day and 19 hours on the weekend
to get through my course to survive.
Will it be hard?
(17:32):
Oh yeah.
Hell yeah.
Will it be worth it?
I have no words for how worth it is.
Literally making that decisionto go back to school saved my
life like a hundred percent.
Completely saved my life.
I don't know if I'd be here.
If it wasn't for that decision,
(17:55):
then I know the person I amright now would not be here.
If I didn't make that decision, ifI didn't go, and it is literally
lying in a bed in a cardiac ward
covered by wires thinking,
(18:15):
is this how it ends?
Don't get to that point.
Just go for it.
You know,
(18:37):
I'm,
and it, it is really okay.
So this is really interesting too,because not only when I did go for that
and succeeded that, that was a directchallenge to who I believed I was or what
I believed I was capable in this world.
(18:58):
And I had to fight.
Fight for the possibility of what I couldbe and who I could be, and I had to fight.
The little demons like, okay,you're going back to school now.
You're like, it's gonnacost all this money.
You're gonna put yourself behindand retirement's gonna be like gonna
be outta reach and maybe you'renot gonna be able to buy a home.
(19:19):
And like literally, what if you fail?
It's a waste of money.
And like, what if you're not good at it?
Like you're older.
What if your body breaks down andit's like on and on and I had to
fight and you're not smart and youread slow and you can't spell, and
like, oh my God, like, you know.
Will anybody even come andsee you when you're licensed?
(19:42):
Like you're not good enough.
And I had to fight that every day.
And the success was a, itwas a line drawn in the sand
against the negative self-image.
It's like literally, if you gofor it, if you can get past all
(20:03):
the things that want to stop you.
If you can come to the terms that thereis, like if it's a big thing, guess what?
It's gonna keep on cycling over andover, over again until you go for it.
Please don't be a kimon and unless youneed to be a kimon, then, then do it.
(20:23):
But regardless, take my advice
and my advice is go for it.
Like if not now.
Then when,
if not you, then who
don't listen to the inner critic, theinner dialogue, the negative self talk.
(20:51):
Don't feed the fears.
Overcome them.
Yeah, it's scary.
Taking on something big.
It's scary going for it in life.
Like there's uh, another athlete who.
Um, you know, didn't get into the program.
They, they want, and they're verytenacious and they try it again.
They didn't get in
(21:12):
and now they're, they're movinghalfway around the world because they
got into the program somewhere else.
And that's the kind of tenacitythat I find incredibly inspiring.
And it's like, man, I wantto be like that person.
Go for your dreams and don't takeno for an answer and don't take, not
(21:37):
now for an answer and don't take,I'm not good enough for an answer.
And don't take fear for an answer,
just go for it.
Everything you want at this lifeis on the other side of fear.
(21:58):
Everything you want
is just on the other side of one decision,and that is, I'm gonna do it now.
I
everything
(22:21):
you are, everything you will be.
Everything you can be is possible.
You just have to take the first step.
I'm gonna leave you with onequote that I just love and this,
I heard this a long time ago.
(22:46):
I, if not now,
say you decide now.
Take one step towards they said,God, but I say to the ultimate dream,
the ultimate, you take one steptowards it and it will run to you.
(23:11):
Your dream will run to you, butyou have to take the first step.
Nobody can take it for you.
Nobody can save you.
You have to take the step
and in the face of all theexcuses and things you say, no,
(23:33):
I'm going for it
now.
Now.
Now is the time.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Conversations with Kimen.
(23:57):
Please remember to follow andlike this podcast on Instagram,
Spotify, apple Podcast, Pod Beanor wherever you find this episode.
Please share this podcast withanyone you feel would be inspired
and benefit from this content.
. Conversations with Kimen is aboutinspiration, life lessons, and wisdom.
Your host, Kimen Petersen shareshis stories to inspire you to live
a more soulful and illuminated life.
The topics covered in this podcastare as personal opinions inspired by
life, experience, and conversationsshared with amazing people.
Kimen hopes to encourage you tobe guided by life in the flow.
(00:23):
So the whole journey is moremanageable and joyful and fulfilling.
If not now,
then when?
So literally yesterday, uh, one ofmy athletes was in, and I really
enjoy talking to this athlete'cause they're super supportive.
(00:44):
Like not only in the aspect of thispodcast, but I'm super supportive around
my goals and they always have somereally cool input and literally they've.
Basically they're splashed acrossepisodes, um, because of the incredible
ability they have to reframe andlike, go for it no matter what.
(01:08):
And you know, they do havestruggles, but they do overcome them.
And just in the overcoming ofthe struggle, they also have the
ability to feel what they needto feel all the way through.
And then come out the otherside with a new look on life.
(01:28):
So anyway, I'm chatting with them aboutthe episodes I'm about to do and what
I'm inspired about, and they're like,oh, there's this thing I keep on seeing.
Um, and it's like, if not now.
Then when, and I'm like,whoa, okay, wait a minute.
Everything's gonna bepushed aside for a minute.
(01:49):
And I, I do need to talk about this'cause this is super important and it.
Definitely I was sitting in thislife where I wasn't going for life.
Um, there's a lot of reasons.
I mean, I had a reallyself negative self image.
I had an inner critic that I'd built upto the, the strength of not only being
(02:13):
the conversation in my head, but it wouldget so loud, it would actually come out.
I'd actually talk to myselfnegatively, out loud,
and.
My excuse was IU this was what I usedto stop me from doing things right?
Like I, I believed that I wasn't capable.
(02:35):
I believed that I wasn't strong.
I wasn't able, I mean, at onepoint it was almost like my biggest
belief in self that I was, Inever amount to nothing, anything.
That I was only here on this earthtaking up space, basically displacing
a certain amount of air until the dayI die, and then I displace less air.
(02:59):
I never accomplished anything andI never really make a difference,
even though I had this incredibledesire to make a difference.
So.
It was a long path to get fromthere to there, there to here.
But some of the things I learned alongthe way, I'm gonna share them today.
(03:20):
So I truly believe, and I've foundin my own life, that if you really
wanna do something new, I mean, if youhave a desire for more than you are.
If you wanna begin somethingnew, something big, you know,
you want to change your job, youwant to like regain your health
(03:42):
if you want to go back to school.
These things aren't justgiven to you randomly.
I mean, one of the episodes Italk about, um, how, what if it's.
You know your future self
(04:05):
kind of calling across dimensions andtime saying, come on, this is your dream
and this future self is cheering for you.
Like if you have any ofthese dreams, then go for it.
'cause the truth is right now you arethe youngest you will ever be again.
(04:26):
This is it.
You are right in this moment,in this present moment.
You will never be youngerthan you are right now.
You'll, you'll never be more capable,have more capacity, have more energy, have
more possibility than you do right now,
(04:53):
and you'll never have more timeto do something to go for it.
And you know,
I truly believe that what you aremeant to do will happen no matter what.
Have you ever noticed somethinglike this is something I noticed.
(05:15):
I had this incredible dream tomake a difference in the world,
but in order to make a difference in theworld, you have to get some education.
And when I was in school, Ihad a lot of trouble reading.
Like I couldn't read very fast.
It was really hard to read.
(05:37):
Um, I'd keep on having to go backand read it over and over again,
and I keep on getting the wordswrong and everything was jumbled up.
And yeah, it was, it was,it was a chore to read.
And on top of that, it wasincredible chore to spell.
Because every time I spelledsomething right, it looked wrong.
(05:58):
So I correct it and it was wrong.
And my teachers would always betelling me over the years, like, why
did you, why did you correct that?
Because you had it right andthen you changed it to wrong.
And I had no clue
until I was 26.
And one of my friends, um, was aspecial ed teacher and I, I'd written
(06:22):
a happy birthday card for them.
And when they read it, they'relike, did you notice it?
A lot of your letters are backwards.
And I'm like, no, that's just how I write.
She's like, are you dyslexic?
And I'm dys.
What?
Anyway, we did some testing.
(06:42):
It turns out it was dyslexic.
And the crazy thing was that allthose years of having so much
trouble reading and spelling.
I thought I was stupid.
In fact, that was my inner critic.
You're stupid.
You'll never make it through school.
So I actually put off a lot of things inlife, a lot of dreams in life, because
(07:08):
I didn't think I was good enough.
I didn't think I was stupid.
I, well, I thought I was stupid.
I didn't think I had anything.
There was nothing special about me, andthere was no way that I would ever be able
to make a huge difference in this world.
And the crazy thing is life.
Like, like we're we're talking about.
(07:28):
If not now, then when, and these bigthings I, like I said before, they're
gonna happen, you know, like some of themajor religions talk about free will.
Like you have the free will.
Right?
See, I have a different take on free will.
You know how things cycleover and over again.
(07:50):
They keep on cycling and cyclingand cycling until you learn the
lesson or until you go and do it.
Well, I had this experience
and after a while realized, wow, freewill wasn't exactly what I thought.
I, I thought free will was the freewill to do whatever I wanted regardless.
(08:15):
And now my take on freewill is pretty simple.
There is an incredible plan formy life, and I definitely get the
echo of that plan in the things I'mattracted to doing or the things I'm
inspired, like go back to school, likefind a job that makes a difference.
These themes were in mylife all the time, and yet.
(08:38):
I'm like, oh man, but I can't, or it's toohard or it's gonna cost too much money.
And there was just like thing afterthing after thing in the way of going
in the, in the direction of this dream.
And like I said, I realized that freewill doesn't mean we have the free
(08:59):
will to do whatever the hell we want.
Free will actually, to me.
Is there is a purpose and a plan foryour life, and you have the choice
to go willingly or unwillingly.
You actually have the choice to delayit and go through the struggle of delay.
(09:20):
'cause literally me knowingthat I wanted to have a job that
made a difference every day.
And this idea that I wasn't smartenough or I couldn't afford it,
or I like it would be too hard.
It kept on and I just kept on goingdown the path of taking job after job
(09:43):
after job that never really amountedto anything until I took a job that was
too much and it just about destroyed me.
And this is what happens if you don't.
Start moving in the direction of yourpurpose, of your goals, of your dreams.
It's gonna keep on cycling andit's gonna keep on cycling.
I, I, I look at it this way, theuniverse gives you a poke and
(10:06):
it's like, you gotta get going.
You gotta get doing this,and it pokes you again.
Come on, let's go.
And it pushes you over.
Like, come on.
And if you don't listen and you don'tdo it, you're gonna end up like me.
I took this crazy job that I, I, I,it was too much and the stress was so
(10:30):
much that one day I ended up in theemergency ward thinking I was having
a heart attack and I was sittingthere going, so this is how it ends.
And I was like, okay.
Uh, I got it.
Okay.
Whoever's listening up there,get me outta this and I promise
I'm gonna figure it out.
I'm gonna go in my direction because ifnot now, you're gonna cycle over and over
(10:57):
and it's gonna get harder and harder andharder until you are thrown on the ground
and like.
You can go for that.
I'll never do that again.
I will never go through that again.
I don't get me wrong, I'm so grateful thatthe universe actually put me through that,
that it found my way to my ultimate dream.
(11:19):
But I don't think youhave to go through this.
I think you can find your waywithout going to that level
because literally after, afterthat night in, in the cardiac ward.
It is.
It is interesting.
Tony Robbins says, nothing will everchange until the pain of staying the same.
(11:48):
Gets larger, gets bigger,gets more like difficult.
Then the pain of change.
And once you get to that point,once you get to threshold,
that's when you change.
And it's like the universeis gonna do that for you.
(12:09):
Or you can realize thatyou have this dream
and you can do it for yourself.
You can sit there and realize that metaking no action to towards this dream,
me waiting thinking there's time.
Literally wasting the time becauseright now, this moment you will, you'll
(12:33):
never gonna have time like you have now.
You're never gonna have energy.
You're never, ever again gonna bemore capable, more like coherent.
This is the moment.
So if you're sitting therelike, not now, not now, not now.
It's like get really present.
(12:55):
To the delay and what's that causing?
Because the reason we're saying not nowis because we think the pain of the change
to moving towards that is gonna be greaterthan what we're going through right now.
Sitting on the couch, watchingtv, scrolling your phone.
(13:20):
I mean, is that better than maybe goingto bed a little earlier, getting up, going
to school, maybe working what you can?
Maybe, you know, it's, itain't gonna be easy, trust me.
It wasn't When I went back to school,it was hell every day, but I just
created routine and I just dug in andI struggled with my internal dialogue.
(13:47):
Because I knew this was my last chance.
I was in my forties.
If I'm gonna change, I gotta do it now,
because there was no more thanwhen I'd pushed it too far.
I had no choice.
This was the moment
(14:08):
and it was hard, and therewere moments I broke down.
But I'll tell you what,when I received that letter.
Because we'd, we'd written these licensingexams and I was moving in this direction
of a dream where I would have a job everyday that I could help people that, like
(14:28):
my existence was gonna have meaning andit was gonna make difference in the world.
And I remember the day I'm, Igo down and I open the mailbox.
I've been opening it day afterday, waiting for the letter to
tell me whether or not I madeit through my licensing exams.
And like I got it and I took it outtathe thing and I'm shaking 'cause
I'm not going to open that up in theelevator 'cause I don't want to cry in
(14:52):
bunch in front of a bunch of people.
I don't know.
And I got into the door of myapartment, I didn't even look.
I tore the letter open and allit said was, we are pleased.
And I just fell down and Icried and I realized that,
that I finally listened to.
(15:14):
It's now we don't have anything likewe have this myth, like we have time.
Are you really?
Do you really know that
the past doesn't exist?
All that exists as an echo, a memory.
The past does not exist.
(15:36):
Everything up to this point is a memory.
It's not real anymore.
The future actually does not exist.
It doesn't.
It doesn't.
It's not tangible.
You can't grab it.
There's not, it just, it doesn't exist.
It's just a dream or a curse orfear, or wherever you are around your
(16:02):
future, like whatever you believe.
But that's not even the truth.
And most of the time we are puttingsuch negative things into our
future, which are not the truth.
The only thing that exists.
This is the, this is the thing that'slike the only thing that exists is
this moment, this present moment.
(16:24):
And in this moment right now, this is it.
You, you will never be younger.
You'll never be more capable.
You will never be more coherent.
You will never have more energy.
You and you will never have moretime than you have right now.
So why aren't you getting up like you'reon fire and chasing it and going for it?
(16:49):
Like if not now, thenwhen, and there is no when.
That's a great delusion.
There is no when all there is is nowand now, and now and now, and it doesn't
matter what you've done your whole life.
Literally, I had to go back andredo a bunch of stuff because my,
(17:11):
my grades weren't high enough.
I had to, I had to let go of a whole passof not being able to read, uh, very fast.
I had to study four and a half hoursa day and 19 hours on the weekend
to get through my course to survive.
Will it be hard?
(17:32):
Oh yeah.
Hell yeah.
Will it be worth it?
I have no words for how worth it is.
Literally making that decisionto go back to school saved my
life like a hundred percent.
Completely saved my life.
I don't know if I'd be here.
If it wasn't for that decision,
(17:55):
then I know the person I amright now would not be here.
If I didn't make that decision, ifI didn't go, and it is literally
lying in a bed in a cardiac ward
covered by wires thinking,
(18:15):
is this how it ends?
Don't get to that point.
Just go for it.
You know,
(18:37):
I'm,
and it, it is really okay.
So this is really interesting too,because not only when I did go for that
and succeeded that, that was a directchallenge to who I believed I was or what
I believed I was capable in this world.
(18:58):
And I had to fight.
Fight for the possibility of what I couldbe and who I could be, and I had to fight.
The little demons like, okay,you're going back to school now.
You're like, it's gonnacost all this money.
You're gonna put yourself behindand retirement's gonna be like gonna
be outta reach and maybe you'renot gonna be able to buy a home.
(19:19):
And like literally, what if you fail?
It's a waste of money.
And like, what if you're not good at it?
Like you're older.
What if your body breaks down andit's like on and on and I had to
fight and you're not smart and youread slow and you can't spell, and
like, oh my God, like, you know.
Will anybody even come andsee you when you're licensed?
(19:42):
Like you're not good enough.
And I had to fight that every day.
And the success was a, itwas a line drawn in the sand
against the negative self-image.
It's like literally, if you gofor it, if you can get past all
(20:03):
the things that want to stop you.
If you can come to the terms that thereis, like if it's a big thing, guess what?
It's gonna keep on cycling over andover, over again until you go for it.
Please don't be a kimon and unless youneed to be a kimon, then, then do it.
(20:23):
But regardless, take my advice
and my advice is go for it.
Like if not now.
Then when,
if not you, then who
don't listen to the inner critic, theinner dialogue, the negative self talk.
(20:51):
Don't feed the fears.
Overcome them.
Yeah, it's scary.
Taking on something big.
It's scary going for it in life.
Like there's uh, another athlete who.
Um, you know, didn't get into the program.
They, they want, and they're verytenacious and they try it again.
They didn't get in
(21:12):
and now they're, they're movinghalfway around the world because they
got into the program somewhere else.
And that's the kind of tenacitythat I find incredibly inspiring.
And it's like, man, I wantto be like that person.
Go for your dreams and don't takeno for an answer and don't take, not
(21:37):
now for an answer and don't take,I'm not good enough for an answer.
And don't take fear for an answer,
just go for it.
Everything you want at this lifeis on the other side of fear.
(21:58):
Everything you want
is just on the other side of one decision,and that is, I'm gonna do it now.
I
everything
(22:21):
you are, everything you will be.
Everything you can be is possible.
You just have to take the first step.
I'm gonna leave you with onequote that I just love and this,
I heard this a long time ago.
(22:46):
I, if not now,
say you decide now.
Take one step towards they said,God, but I say to the ultimate dream,
the ultimate, you take one steptowards it and it will run to you.
(23:11):
Your dream will run to you, butyou have to take the first step.
Nobody can take it for you.
Nobody can save you.
You have to take the step
and in the face of all theexcuses and things you say, no,
(23:33):
I'm going for it
now.
Now.
Now is the time.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Conversations with Kimen.
(23:57):
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